


Llwy

by anactoriatalksback



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sort of at any rate, references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: An exhibition, a memory, and a question.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62
Collections: Fingerbang #1





	Llwy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a 500-word challenge, prompt: "cutlery"

‘I haven’t seen one of these before.’

Francis looks across at James, staring at the case with his head to one side.

The Royal Society has asked permission to display artefacts from the Ross Expedition, and Francis and Fitzjames are strolling through the exhibition.

‘Dai Adams,’ Fitzjames reads, stooped over the little card in the case. ‘A Welshman.’

‘Ship’s boy,’ says Francis. ‘Puppy of a thing. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. You could see the man he was going to become.’

Fitzjames watches Francis. ‘How did he die?’

Francis shrugs. ‘Hard to tell, in the end. Scurvy or exhaustion or starvation or thirst. They were fighting over us all. Fighting for the privilege of ending us.’

Fitzjames thinks of the battlegrounds of his and Francis’s body. ‘And then you slip away undetected with your life while the cankers and the sores fight it out, eh?’ He looks at Francis, at the inward blaze of those well-loved blue eyes, and bumps Francis’s shoulder with his own. ‘I’ve heard of worse stratagems.’

Francis blinks and returns to himself. He looks at Fitzjames and smiles. ‘So it was strategy then? That’s what you’re calling it?’

‘I’ll insist on that to you, at any rate,’ says Fitzjames, as offensively seriously as he can contrive, ‘until I’m blue in the face. To my biographers I’ll tell the truth. Or _a_ truth, at any event.’

‘Which is?’

‘You were there,’ says Fitzjames, ‘you can keep me honest.’

Francis leans, briefly, on Fitzjames’s arm. ‘You don’t need me for that.’

Fitzjames feels the loss when Francis straightens, acutely. He gestures to the case. ‘So,’ he says, ‘what was Adams making? D’you know?’

Francis stares at the case and nods. ‘A love spoon,’ he says. ‘He had a sweetheart in – oh, I don’t know, Caermarthen, I think it was.’

‘A love spoon?’

‘They make them in Wales. You carve them and present them to your sweetheart’s father. You prove – care, fortitude, the ability to take a thing and hold fast with it, pride in your work.’

Fitzjames is watching Francis. ‘Useful things in a husband.’

‘Useful things in a _man_.’

They turn to look at the spoon. ‘He’d nearly finished.’

Francis nods.

‘It’s beautiful,’ says Fitzjames, ‘anyone would have been proud, I think, to receive it.’

Francis nods. Then he says, carefully: ‘Would you?’

Fitzjames stands very still. He says, at length, with equal care: ‘To receive this particular one?’

‘James,’ says Francis.

Fitzjames swallows. Then he says: ‘I would,’ and quickly: ‘I’d be just as proud to _make_ it, should – should my sweetheart care to receive it.’

Francis is staring at the case. His ears are bright red and his eyes are shining. He clears his throat and says: ‘Shame neither of us is Welsh, eh?’

‘A pity,’ agrees Fitzjames, and finds he is smiling and smiling and quite unable to stop. ‘We’ll have to find something else, then.’

**Author's Note:**

> My effusive thanks to the glorious and talented @atttheborder, who organised this little Fingerbang and herded us together.
> 
> My tumblr handle is [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come yell with me there.
> 
> A handy-dandy rebloggable link for this fic is [here](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/post/621842413066027008/llwy-anactoriatalksback-the-terror-tv-2018) if you are so inclined.


End file.
